Posted by Michael Wonder on 02 Mar 2020
PHARMAC's handling of funding request for sanitary products labelled 'devious' and 'underhanded'
3 March 2020 - Last August Dr Sarah Donovan from the University of Otago applied to the drug buying agency, in conjunction with Auckland YWCA, to fund sanitary products in all decile 1-4 primary, secondary and intermediate schools.
She says she’d been in touch with PHARMAC for four years about the issue of sanitary product funding, and drew on international and local research for her application, after advice from the agency.
It wasn’t until she was contacted by 1 NEWS that she found out her application had been taken out of consideration, and was being treated as a research proposal instead.
